Blog response from Gale

Looking back at mathematics I cannot really say much, since math is my major, and throughout high school I was quite successful in math and really appreciate all the different ways of teaching mathematics brings. However I’m sure I’m not alone when it comes to how math was taught to us throughout our high school careers. Constant problems and practices learning from the textbook, board work, repetition, worksheets, then test, math never really tested my limits as a student it was generic and straight forward. My math classes really discriminated against other learners, people who never understood the concepts, but never helped these students, which led a lot of these students to believe they suck at math, when that is simply not the case. Math can expressed in so many different ways and from taking classes with Gale, its interesting to see these new concepts for how to teach math, because we are so accustomed to the traditional ways of teaching and learning math, we never reach our mathematics potential. So I think it is now my responsibility when I get into a school to teach mathematics that I don’t fall under the same colonization of the traditional ways to teach math.

After reading the article about math in Inuit communities, three ways they challenge Eurocentric ideas, are first and foremost the language, they do not use common mathematical language which is what Eurocentric mathematics is really based on, the concept that we are accustomed to we do not see them as much when they are being taught in this Inuit community. Secondly they are challenging the content behind mathematics where we are used to a simply base 10 system they work with base 20, and are not solving problems that revolve around their everyday lives. Lastly they do not call upon students who do not know the answer and they lecture instead of constant note taking this way the children will know when they are ready to answer a question and by not writing notes and notes can help the children appreciate math and not be bored by it. Which to me is really interesting because I think it will help math learners comprehend these concepts if they are more intrigued and actually have to listen rather then just copy what I am writing down on the board, this defiantly helps get away from Eurocentric Ideas.